Memory, custom instructions and My Voice

Custom instructions apply to every chat reply while the switch is on. There are three free-text fields and two pickers:

• Name: what Copilotly should call you.
• About you: your job, your field, your constraints. Useful, specific context helps more than a long biography.
• How to respond: preferences such as showing working, avoiding jargon or giving the answer first.
• Tone: Default, Professional, Friendly, Casual or Direct.
• Length: Default, Concise or Detailed.

If you turn instructions off, Copilotly ignores them until you turn them back on, and you can still edit them. Instructions and memories shape replies in Chat only. The reply assistants, Craft and copilots use My Voice instead.

Memory stores short facts that help later answers: your preferred units, the tools you use, how you like things formatted. Copilotly can pick them up from a chat, or you can add them yourself, and the card marks which are which.

• Read and edit everything. Every memory is listed in plain text. Edit one, or delete it, with a short window to undo a delete.
• Search. Once you have more than six memories, a search box appears.
• Limits. The free plan stores up to 20 memories; paid plans up to 200. When full, you delete one to add another.
• Off switch. Turn memory off and Copilotly will not use or save memories. The ones you have stay in the list until you delete them.

Avoid storing sensitive details such as health information, financial account numbers or passwords as memories. Memory is for preferences, not secrets.

My Voice learns how you write from samples you paste: an email you sent, a post or message, and optionally something else. Each sample needs at least 40 characters, and only the style is kept. The result is shown as a few traits and a short style guide you can turn on or off or delete (Forget your voice).

It is used when Copilotly drafts replies in Gmail, LinkedIn, X, WhatsApp, Teams and Craft, so replies sound less like an assistant. Copilotly limits it per day:

• Free: your voice is used on 5 drafts a day.
• Pro: every draft.

For one-off tone changes on selected text, the selection toolbar has tone and length pickers. For polishing a block of text, the tone changer and email writer are free and need no account.

Not every chat should use what Copilotly knows about you. Choose Incognito in the chat and the banner confirms that no instructions or memories are used and nothing is remembered from that chat. Chats can also be shared by link, and you can revoke shared links in Personalization. Export a chat as Markdown, or as PDF on Pro.

These controls are a reason to be specific rather than cautious about what you store. Keep memories practical, use incognito for anything personal, and review the list now and then. Pro is $6.99/week, $19.99/month or $149.99/year, with a 7-day free trial for first-time subscribers; see pricing and what Free includes.

Most people fill in the fields with a short biography and see no difference. What changes answers is a clear preference and relevant context.

The About you field

Say what shapes the answers: your role, the field, the level of knowledge you have, and any constraint, such as working in a regulated industry or writing for a non-native English audience. Leave out details that never change an answer.

The How to respond field

Write instructions you could check: answer first and explain after, use plain language, show the calculation, ask a question before assuming. Vague instructions such as "be smart" do nothing.

Tone and length pickers

Tone is Default, Professional, Friendly, Casual or Direct. Length is Default, Concise or Detailed. These are global, so choose the one you want most of the time. One-off changes are quicker in the chat itself or with the tone and length pickers on the selection toolbar.

Instructions or memory?

Put standing preferences in instructions. Put facts that may change, such as a project name, in memory where you can delete them later.

Memory is stored with your account and visible in the Memory card, which is the control. The risk is what you put there.

Safe to store

Preferences and working context: metric units, your programming language, the tools your team uses, the format you like for summaries.

Better left out

Passwords, financial account numbers, health details, other people's private information and anything covered by a confidentiality agreement. Use an Incognito chat when you need to talk through something personal, because it uses no instructions or memories and remembers nothing from the chat.

Review it now and then

Open Personalization, scan the list and delete anything out of date. The EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense guides are a good general reference on what to share with online services. Our own free plan page lists what is included without paying.

The profile is only as good as the samples you give it.

Choose samples that sound like you at your best

Pick writing you wrote yourself and would be happy to send again, not something heavily edited by others. Each sample needs at least 40 characters, but longer ones show more of your style.

Use different kinds of writing

An email and a casual post teach more together than two emails. If you write differently for different audiences, the learned style is an average, so keep it for the register you use most.

Check the traits it shows

After learning, the profile appears as a short list of traits. If they look wrong, replace a sample, or use Forget your voice and start again. Remember that the free plan applies it to 5 drafts a day, and Pro to every draft.

The three features overlap in purpose, which causes confusion about which one to use.

Use instructions for how you want answers

Format, level, tone and length. These are rules that apply to every chat reply, so they should be things you would not mind seeing in every answer.

Use memory for what is true about you or your work

Units, tools, project names, preferred spelling. These are facts, and they can go out of date, so keep them in a list you can edit.

Use My Voice for how your writing sounds

It does not change facts or format. It changes the sound of the replies Copilotly drafts for you on other sites. If you want a one-off style change, a tone picker or the tone changer is quicker.

Use Incognito for the exceptions

When a conversation should not be shaped by or add to what Copilotly knows, switch to Incognito and the banner confirms nothing is used or remembered.

OpenAI documents how memory works in ChatGPT in its Memory FAQ, and the concept is the same: the assistant keeps notes about you and uses them later. Copilotly is an independent product, not made by OpenAI or Microsoft, and the differences are in the details.

Where Copilotly differs

Memory sits in a visible list with search, editing and undo. A separate My Voice profile covers writing style for drafted replies. The same personalization applies across several model families, because you pick the model in the same chat.

Where ChatGPT may do better

If you only use one vendor's models, its native memory is tightly integrated with its own apps, and its behaviour and limits are set by that company. Check its documentation for the current details, because they change. The ChatGPT comparison and the Claude comparison cover the wider differences.

Which should you choose?

If you want one assistant tied to one vendor, use that vendor. If you switch between models or want the same memory in a browser sidebar on any site, Copilotly fits. The pricing page has the plan costs.